Blog Archive

When the clock hits midnight on December 31, a long chapter will come to a close for the Public Policy Forum, and an exciting new one will begin.
On that date, our merger with the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance will be effectuated, and we will become...

As many schools throughout Wisconsin get ready to take their winter breaks, the Public Policy Forum releases its 32nd annual public education report: Public Schooling in Southeast Wisconsin: 2017. In this year’s analysis, we find reason for cautious...

It’s been a busy year for the Forum. Despite all of the work involved with our merger with WISTAX, our research agenda has remained robust and our research findings have been the subject of policy deliberations on many fronts. Here, we take one more...

A new leader has been crowned in the movement to advance the quality and speed of bus services in the U.S. After nearly a decade of looking to Cleveland’s HealthLine as the best model for bus rapid transit (BRT) in the nation – as we did in our...

Can schools in metro Milwaukee and Wisconsin maintain a stable corps of effective educators for the students they serve and the subjects they teach?
The question is a crucial one. Among the factors within a school’s purview that drive student...

While Forum members and supporters know that we publish budget briefs each year analyzing the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, and Milwaukee Public Schools budgets, some may be unaware that our work does not stop there. After releasing our...

Few local policy issues generate more emotional debate than the Milwaukee streetcar. And, if a recent Marquette Law School poll is any indication, this issue is likely to remain controversial even after the initial streetcar line opens a year from...

In our 2018 budget brief, we find that the City of Milwaukee’s unsustainable revenue structure and rising pension costs cast huge shadows over the 2018 proposed budget. A report we published earlier this year, On the Money?, found that Milwaukee...

At this time last year, in the Forum’s review of the Milwaukee County Executive’s 2017 recommended budget, we marveled at how unique it was to see a single issue dominate the budget and its deliberations. This year, in our analysis of the 2018...

When MPS staged a recent celebration to kick off the 2017-18 school year as the Year of the Arts, we could trace the moment, in part, to a research project we concluded in April 2014, called Every Child is an Artist. About a year and a half ago, we...